What's the best internet browser?

[SoftKittyWarmKitty]

I currently use IE8 and it's SO slow, keeps freezing and some sites won't work properly on it (Pinterest, for one, won't let me pin my own photos as the browser blocks something from Pinterest downloading).

What other browsers are there and which is best?

The other two main ones are Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Of the two, Chrome is probably the most secure and fastest. That said, I prefer the user interface in Firefox and find Chrome a little too minimalistic. Your mileage may vary.

I prefer Firefox but tend to use Safari as it syncs my bookmarks with my ipad

On a PC I like using Opera (www.opera.com/) and on a Mac I like the provided browser Safari.

But as NiceGuy says it's a very personal thing and your mileage may vary. Download a few browsers and take them for a spin to see what you like. It's hard to say arbitrarily that one Browser is "the best", but that said I'd normally put Internet Explorer at the bottom of the pile.

However it shouldn't be that bad an experience for you. Do you have anti-malware software on your PC? Is it up to date? Try download this and checking that there's nothing bad lurking on your computer that's causing this:
www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

I prefer firefox because I find it the easiest to use

I have Malwarebytes and ran it a few days ago, so not a problem there. I have Firefox but that also seems slow, so might try Google Chrome.

It could be my laptop just getting on a bit - it's 5.5 years old and I read somewhere the average laptop lifespan is 3 years, so it's doing quite well all things considered. Still, it's so slow at times that I could happily chuck it out of the window.

"It could be my laptop just getting on a bit - it's 5.5 years old and I read somewhere the average laptop lifespan is 3 year"

Quite possibly... New web sites can be quite demanding in terms of what they ask a browser to do and that can, and will, slow things down.

It might be worth starting another thread asking for advice on how to clean your PC down as you might be able to give it a speed boost by doing a few simple things.

I love Google Chrome. It's very fast and easy to use